1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a column oven for adjusting temperature of a column used in a Liquid Chromatograph (LC), and in particular, to a column oven in a heat block manner.
2. Description of Related Art
In the analysis of the LC, an ingredient retention property of the column may be influenced by temperature, and in addition, viscosity of the mobile phase may also be influenced by the temperature; hence, maintaining a constant column temperature is important for realizing high analysis reproducibility. Furthermore, in order to ensure the identity of obtained analysis results (chromatogram) of the same sample by using a plurality of LC devices, to properly control the column temperature is important. Accordingly, in the LC analysis (especially in the analysis of the current mainstream High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC)), a column oven is usually used to adjust the temperature of the column (referring to Patent Documentation 1).
The manner for adjusting the temperature of the column oven mainly includes a heat block manner, an air circulation manner, and a liquid circulation manner. As shown in FIG. 11(a), the heat block manner is as follows: allowing a block including aluminum and other metals having high thermal conductivity (a heat block 60) to contact a column 90, and adjusting the temperature of the heat block 60 by using a heater 71 (for example, referring to Patent Documentation 1).
When the heat block manner is used to adjust the temperature of the column oven, the following control is performed. The current temperature of the heat block 60 is measured by using a temperature sensor 81 installed near the heater 71, and the electrical power provided for the heater 71 is adjusted according to the current temperature.